Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InsideoutBot

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The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was

Request Expired.

[edit] InsideoutBot

tasks • contribs • count • sul • logs • page moves • block user • block log • flag log • flag bot

Operator: Nick

Automatic or Manually Assisted:

Programming Language(s): VB6 / VB.net

Function Summary: Using the feed in IRC channel #wikipedia-spam-t, InsideoutBot will swap any external links to Wikipedia and associated Wikimedia sites to the correct internal version.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Continuous

Edit rate requested: 6 edits per minute - expected to be around 1 edit per 15 minutes in reality however.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function Details: Bot will parse the feed from #wikipedia-spam-t, load the relevant diff, before changing the external link to an internal link through the removal of the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ and the addition of the extra [ ] if necessary. In the event of a different site, such as de.wiki or commons.wiki, the bot will remove the http:// and wikipedia/wikimedia.org/wiki sections of the address and correctly forming the internal link. If desired, the bot can load the page being linked to and check to see if it's a disambiguation page before correcting the link format, and if necessary, add the page to a category for disambiguation to be carried out on the link. If the page being linked to does not exist, the bot can, if desired, skip the process, remove the link entirely through a simple, explained revert to the page, or can again flag the page up to be checked. If desired, the bot can also leave a pleasant note on the talk page explaining the virtues of using internal links over external links.

[edit] Discussion

Just to clarify as your description states that the bot will swap any external links: will the bot ignore links to diffs (eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=something&diff=102233723&oldid=102233609) and oldrevs (anything ending in oldid=paramter)? -- Seed 2.0 15:45, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

It'll avoid diffs and references (though, again, it could flag up cases where Wikipedia is being used as a self reference, if so desired) Nick 16:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I would advise only changing the /wiki/ links, as /w/ is only used by the software when extra parameters are required, which cannot be passed via standard /wiki/ renames. There are a couple exceptions, but they usually only apply to Special pages. I've also never seen a external link to a /w/ URL (unless its a diff or log page) used instead of an internal URL, but I do see a lot of /wiki/ ones. Matt - TheFearow 21:15, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Weak support for this point in time. You should only edit the /wiki/ links and not the /w/ as they can be article diff links and after the bot's edits, the links won't work if changed to an internal link. E ^talk 07:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a few cases, like Wikipedia, where external links should not be replaced with internal links (the link back to Wikipedia itself shouldn't break in mirrors); {{srlink}} is a possible replacement, but as far as I know there isn't a reason why the external links shouldn't be given outright. --ais523 14:01, 7 June 2007 (U T C)